That little gut-burn of fear we all know so well, can be fuel. It can also paralyze us into a rut that seems insurmountable. I’ve worked on both sides of fear for many years and have learned some things to be true:

Harnessing that gut-fear takes courage

When used as fuel, gut-fear makes opportunities seem endless

Power can be scary, but that’s the best place to live and make decisions from

Failure is possible, but not taking risk is even worse than failing

Little gut-fear triumphs add up to some serious, miraculous change for the better

I work from places of complacency and fear, both. Sometimes I don’t feel like going with my gut for whatever reason. If I rock along in this state for too long, I paralyze and get stuck. Life feels ‘off.’ Negative energy attracts to me. My mind will tell me that going with my gut will be too much effort and it’s just not worth it. After a while, this causes me burnout and frustration.

When I take the time to notice that gut-fear for what it is, and use it for the positive, I feel powerful. I make clear, conscious choices. I take risks. I have that hard conversation: I stop behaviors that bother me: I don’t take any shit: I do new things: I create: I sleep better: I have more energy.

I am vowing to make more choices from the positive gut-fear. I will sit with it, listen to it, and let my intuition guide me. There is no need to fight the fear. It’s part of life and it will always be there, for all of us. It’s primal. It’s part of living. Why should it be the enemy?

I have been meditating on my fears for a while now and looked them all directly in the face. One by one, I realize that it is my internal energy, my heart, my soul speaking to me. If it is a fear that repeats and continues, I know that my intuition is speaking and I must listen.

We all have intuition for a reason, no matter how big or small.

I want to move forward listening to my center. I need that connection to myself. That’s where we should live from.

We are enough just as we are today. We are bigger than our negative thoughts or fears. Let’s harness them, listen to what it’s really telling us, and act.

Life’s experiences, choices, and decisions all have a way of compacting over time. One decision leads to the next, and so forth. It can become really heavy with time if we do not let go of some of the past, so that way we may grow and adapt as we age.

Some choices in letting go may bring up a tinge of guilt; perhaps you feel obligated to hang on to a relationship or item just because you spent time or money on it at some point. But, if you are in a rut, or are feeling weighed down by life in general, it may be time to let it go.

If something or someone is holding you back and no longer serving you, it’s OK to start over and begin anew. That is the beauty of growing, adapting, and changing. It is totally natural to begin fresh.

If you have met your match and feel like you are carrying the world on your shoulders, it may be time to shake it up a bit.

How to let go and start fresh

Meditate: I’m not talking about sitting on a pillow with incense. I’m talking about getting some time to yourself to really inspect your insides and heart. You need to calm the outside world and internal noise long enough to really admit where you are and what you would like to change. This doesn’t have to happen in one day. As a matter of fact, it may take a really long time. But, if you are wanting the weight of the world lifted, you must put yourself first for a while and get clear on your mission.

2. Be Honest: Admit that you are not on the path you would like to be on. It’s OK, we all have been there a million times. Just because we are on one path doesn’t mean we have to stick with it if it’s no longer doing any good. Admitting that you are not happy with your current state is the best way to motivate change.

3. Dream: Having hopes and dreams can get lost in the chaos of a busy life. We get in that rut or that grind for so long taking care of families, jobs, chores, and children until we are buried under the dirt. It’s time to dig out and dig out fast. Give yourself permission to dream of where you want to be. It is reality that you can be that person if you begin dreaming again. Start a dream board, star gaze, focus on your desires with absolutely no guilt whatsoever for a change.

4. Start: Perhaps the scariest step of all, but when you get clear on the path you want to explore, and let go of extra baggage weighing you down – start. It doesn’t matter where you start because there is no perfect solution. Once you begin and have success, you may tackle the next obstacle.

5. Journey: Change doesn’t have to be drudgery. Plan to set yourself up for success. Start a blog or journal. Invite creative vibes and exploration in your journey. Call it an experiment. Write a book. You are free to change as many times as you wish. Welcome failure, that’s where you learn the most. And if you do fail (and probably will), keep going. Your only competition is YOU. The one looking back in the mirror. It’s not your friends, spouse, parents, or children competing with you. You owe it to yourself to have a little fun in life and be that person you want to be.

I wanted to talk about this because I have attempted change a million times in the past and failed. Then I let guilt get to me. I felt like I was letting everyone down. But, with a little grace and practice mixed with some perseverance and humor, change can be welcomed and fun. Life doesn’t always have to be so serious.

So, if you were wanting to make a change today – you know, that little voice that is saying disappointing things in your ear all day every day? Tell it to hush and get to work.

It’s a new day, today. Seize it. And you know what? Tomorrow will be a fresh start too. That is the biggest gift of sunrise. A new day to change, make a difference, to love, and to enjoy. And when you lie down at night, take a breath, let it all go and start again tomorrow.

We all have done experiments and changed our behaviors at some point or another. So, we know we can do it, it’s just a matter of doing it.

I’ve changed my behavior approximately 9,000,000,000 times in the last thirty-something years. Some of my changes stick, other’s don’t. We all change minute to minute throughout our lives, and that’s totally OK.

In recent posts I talked about my no/lo poo journey. This clearly doesn’t apply to everyone, but it does to me. It’s something worth experimenting because:

I want to save money instead of wasting it on beauty products

I want to spend less time primping in the mornings

I want to be OK with my natural, authentic self

That’s really the main motives behind this.

A lot of other’s are experimenting with the switch to no/lo poo as well. This is why if your interest is peaked and you go to research, there is so much information available that, quite honestly, makes it seem intimidating.

That’s because what works for one person, doesn’t for another. One person has xyz result and not the other.

So you are kind of frozen not knowing where to start because you simply don’t know what to do and are afraid of the outcome.

What I personally didn’t read a lot of was the honest-to-God truth about what to expect when doing the switch. It made me very leery at first because I know good and dang well that not everyone who does it has that much success, right?

I mean, I have lived long enough to just know better.

And so have you, which is why you may be scared to even try it.

How to start and what to expect:

Decision: You have to want to do this. It’s different from what you’ve always done. Years worth of sudsing up with commercial shampoo has created an exhilarating showering experience every, single day of your life for as long as you have known. If you go no ‘poo – you will not have this experience. You won’t be using shampoo so there won’t be any sudsing or bottled scents wafting in the shower any more.

If you decide to plunge, can you handle it? I mean, it sounds silly but seriously? Can you handle it?

If you are stuck in your decision process and just can’t make up your mind but still want to try it, there’s only one thing to do at this point:

Say eff-it and do it.

Get in the shower and don’t wash your hair.

Expectations: Please don’t expect to fall in love with your hair on this day. It’s going to feel grimy and oily and unmanageable. That’s because you aren’t used to having hair unwashed. Your hair is in shock because it’s actually being left alone for the first time in your life. It’s wanting to run free and roam the meadows.

Let it.

Just like any other change, getting used to unwashed hair takes time. It’s going to feel weird like you ‘forgot something’ and it’s not going to feel the same. You may feel self conscious because you are rocking some unwashed locks.

Don’t expect to style it the same way. At first, it would be wise to have a plan B on styling that day. For me, I twist it back with some bobby pins and go about my business.

After a few days of not washing your hair, don’t be surprised if you realize that you have never gotten to know your hair at all. It’s like a strangers head of hair and you will not know how to deal with it. Again, have a plan B until you figure it out – and you will, and I will too.

For some people, the unwashed hair stays oily for a week and for others months. You will not know how your hair will do until you try it.

Don’t be surprised if no one else on Earth even notices that you aren’t washing your hair. That will be a lightbulb moment when you realize you have been stressing over getting ‘perfect hair’ and no one else has ever cared but you.

Get excited that you will feel free and rebellious like a child that isn’t minding over-bearing adults. It’s like you are getting away with something you aren’t supposed to do. Because, after all, doesn’t everybody over-wash their hair? Doesn’t everybody continue to make commercial shampoo companies super rich while we spend hours a week primping in front of a mirror and spending oodles of our hard earned money unnecessarily?

No. Not everybody.

Don’t be surprised that after not washing your hair for several days that you start to love your natural self and question why you have ever put that kind of time in effort into your hair. You may question why you’ve been manipulating circumstances so much that you have totally ruined a perfectly good set of hair by constantly messing with it.

You may even realize that you are wild and free at heart and it’s not your problem if other people have an issue with what you do with your hair.

Best of all, you may just learn to love your beautiful, primal, loving, gorgeous, authentic self and just be happy with the way things are un-controlled.

And sometimes, having crazy hair – don’t care is the best way to have it after all. Wild and free. Rebellious and empowered. Loved and loving.

I meditate a lot these days, and one recurring theme keeps coming back nearly every time I clear my head and focus:

Where in the hell did your balls go?

Did you give them away?

What have you been so afraid of?

It’s imperative that you either get your balls back from whomever or whatever you gave them to, or grow a new set – a better set, quickly.

Just to clear the record: I am female and I’m not talking about actual testicles.

Balls are something we all have deep down. It’s that yearning, hopeful, self-preserving, primal gusto that somehow gets buried and dissolved into nothingness after so many of life’s slip-ups.

We own our balls. No one can ‘take’ them, yet we freely give them away to our spouse, family, friends, marketing tactics, employers, and society in general. It’s like, we forget who we are because somewhere along the line we decided to be straight-up people pleasers all the time and God forbid we actually look out for ourselves for one minute. Do we just go a long with the crowd to ‘fit in’ or to not step on someone’s toes?

I am totally not about being hateful, rude, or anything like that. It’s just, don’t we have dreams to follow here? Don’t we have an actual life to live?

I’d like to get my balls back or at least grow a pair pretty dang soon. I have a great feeling that once that happens, I can get some serious dream-work done.

We have a chance to make numerous choices every, single day. There comes a point though, when maybe our auto-pilot life becomes comfortable. Boring, stagnant, and comfortable. We realize beneath it all something is lacking. Our joy has been squelched due to the day-to-day demands that we dictate to ourselves. We measure our worth based on checking off the to-do-list and then beating ourselves up when we simply can’t accomplish it all.

That’s a rut. It’s a tough one to admit to, and a stickler to dig out of.

That’s where I was just a few short months ago. I started running – not walking – in the opposite direction.

It was time to take a risk: I have to change and take some risks, here.

This realization and admittance that I am in fact, not Super Woman was a little hard to come to grips with, but there was truth beneath the surface.

I don’t want to be Super Woman.

I don’t want to be living in chaos. I don’t want to feel overwhelmed and full of anxiety. I want peace and joy.

The contrast between the two are pretty drastic.

That means I have to open my mind and try different solutions to my struggle.

Day by day, my slow changes are really easing my anxiety and happiness is finally creeping in. I do things a little differently now by:

Getting rid of excess and clutter for clarity and less wasted time on organizing and picking up.

Removing social media from my life so I can focus on myself and what’s important.

Thinking positively by meditating and appreciating what I have and where I’m going.

Creating a capsule wardrobe so my style is consistent and less stressful when getting ready and wasting money filling the gaps for sake of fashion.

These 10 changes have taken time. I began slowly and deliberately and have really tried to understand myself and my past along the way. It’s been my saving grace in the stickabilty to a major life change like this one.

Knowing you need to make a change and then taking the plunge can be scary. But there is nothing to fear. You can always go back to the way things were before. I mean, what’s there to lose?

When I was telling my best friend about the biggest, hardest, tragic, most emotional event in my life she said the comforting, lovely words to me: “Shit happens.”

Well, that was pretty blunt and why I love her so much.

Not what I wanted to hear necessarily, but it was definitely a shot of truth. Over the last few years I have tried hard to accept some truths about my situation and life as hard as it is. And then, last night I finally had a revelation. I mean, I’ve know this revelation, but somehow it just sunk in and gave me peace.

See, here in Alabama we are hardcore college football fanatics. It is serious business. And, being a University of Alabama football fan – we hear it all the time:

When you are at the top, there’s only one way to go. Down.

This is our justification for winning so many championships and taking it to heart and being spoiled so when we lose it is pretty much the end of the world. Panic strikes and there are tears and toddler tantrums from adults.

Could it be that I am tired of the swampy heat and craving some rotel dip? Probably. Or could it be that it makes sense and that my life circumstance could also apply the same concept?

I’ve been on top of the world. I busted my tail to get where I was. As far as I was concerned I had ‘made it’ and my life was about to be gravy. My hard work and conscious decisions lead me to where I wanted to go: great credit, awesome SUV, husband, cute house, baby, and a stellar job.

I mean, what else really is there?

The ‘what else is there?’ is that you can fall to the bottom quick. Should the stars not align perfectly one day, you can be knocked off the high horse. Deep down we know that can happen – I mean…who’s gonna stop that tornado from demolishing your home, or a sickness, or wreck, or any other crisis? Not me, and not you.

The problem was that I clung so hard to my life that I created. I did it. It worked out. But it was A LOT of pressure to keep it there. Constantly on the defense. Always stressing and worrying about getting knocked off.

And then it happened.

I was knocked to the bottom and nearly lost everything.

Not of any fault of my own – it just happened and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

So here I am with a mess.

But secretly (and here was my acceptance and revelation)… I am thankful.

What? How in tha? How did I do that?

Well, if you are at the top there’s only one way to go…down.

But, if you are at the bottom there is only one way to go…UP!

Yay!

I can let go of the control and pressure from the top. The top is where I was using all my energy for worry and defense and stress to stay there.

I am at the bottom and it’s an excellent way to do things differently. I can now do things the way I want and not the way society tells me I have to.

I can let go and enjoy the journey.

Because truth is, I feel the same as I did at the top except I don’t have the pressure to stay there. I can ride back up with a different set of eyes. I can create something new and beautiful. I can learn from the fall. I can learn to trust intuition and destiny.

Social Media has really taken over, hasn’t it? I remember when Facebook was just for college students, it was a whole lot more private, and didn’t take up so much emotional, mental and social energy. Well, I opened my account in 2004 when I was in college. I’ve been through all the waves and curve balls and here recently, I have just had enough.

I have had enough ‘social posting responsibility’ and people micro managing what I post, who and what I respond to, and the like. Not only that, I notice that the more time I was spending on Facebook the worse I felt. It’s like I was watching a train wreck, but couldn’t quit looking.

I’m not against people who want to use Facebook by any means. But, by hearing my close family and friends chatter about it – it seems they are getting a good fill of it too. Jealousy, frustration, feeling less-than, and constantly comparing their lives with someone else. I mean, we all know deep down that people only post their highlights mostly, but it still can be a real drainer of energy if we don’t control it.

I took it upon myself to go on a Facebook hiatus the last few months and it has been lovely. Yes, I have missed out on a few social updates; like someone had a baby or got married. That’s awesome and all, but I don’t need to continually ‘stalk’ other’s daily lives anymore. I have a lot on my plate and I am changing and rearranging my life – and really don’t have time for that.

So, I deactivated my account today. Although I wasn’t logging on, I feel better knowing that I am unsearchable. I know people are going to notice, and when they do, I will just inform them to text or call me if they need something, no biggie.

I remember the days before social media. It seems like I knew a lot about what was going on around town anyway without logging on to read other people’s business. And also, obsessing over posting MY OWN business. Do I really want everyone to know what I’m doing? No, I don’t.

My personal life is now that. Personal. And I’m already liking it better that way.

It’s all too common to fall asleep thinking of the never ending to-do list. You run over in your mind what all you still had to accomplish that day, but didn’t. Defeat takes over. Regret. Anxiety. Not to mention you have to get up in several hours to go to work – to a job that you aren’t all too happy in because you are a slave to debt.

Now you can’t sleep.

Grr.

Maybe in your past you made mistakes. Perhaps you are a slave to consumerism: constantly buying stuff to fill the void. Perhaps your schedule is so busy that there isn’t room to take care of what matters most to you.

I feel like this a whole lot.

That’s my motivation for simplifying my life. I am actively trying to remove those things that weigh me down and take my attention off my dreams.

I’m slowly giving up the soul sucking energy and behaviors.

1. De-Cluttering my Home: I am getting rid of the things that don’t matter, that I don’t love. Those possessions that are attached to negative energy and memories. They must go.

2. No to Consumerism: I am no longer shopping for fun, instead, I only buy what is vital so I can pay of my credit card debt.

3. Dreamer: Somewhere along the way in busyness and being a ‘grown-up,’ I forgot what it’s like to dream. With debt, a home, family, and kids, my dreams went by the wayside. I still have hopes and dreams deep down. I am slowly allowing those dreams to surface so I may soon take action.

4. Social Media: Facebook had become a negative in my life. I couldn’t help but to look and scroll the newsfeed, but it always left me feeling a little depressed: people on my nerves, feeling like my life wasn’t as happy as someone elses, other people commenting on my activity. I’m on hiatus. I may not ever go back.

5. Diet: I am using food as my energy source instead of entertainment. I eat when I am hungry. When I do eat, it’s minimal sugar and lots of veggies.

6. Yoga: This is a new passion. It helps relieve anxiety and also gets me in shape and tones muscles.

By getting rid of a lot of negatives and adding more positives, I feel more clear. I feel like I can make better decisions.

So, by the end of the day when I am snuggled up in my bed, I will allow my hopes and dreams to come forward. I will rest in peace knowing that my choices today affect tomorrow. I am getting control of my life back and it feels so nice.